TUESDAY, MARCH 13
• Roane County Commission’s fire board will meet at 6 p.m. in the Qualls Commission Room of Roane County Courthouse, Kingston.
• Rockwood Recreation Board will meet in regular session at 6 p.m. in Rockwood Community Center.

Editor’s note: The deadline for including items in Calendar is at least one week before the event. Items appear as a public service as space is available. Unless otherwise noted, all events and activities are open to the public.
MONDAY, MARCH 12

Editor’s note: The deadline for including items in Calendar is at least one week before the event. Items appear as a public service as space is available. Unless otherwise noted, all events and activities are open to the public.

SATURDAY, MARCH 10
• Bradbury United Methodist Church’s Relay for Life team will have a bean and soup supper and auction beginning at 6 p.m. in the church at 3506 Buttermilk Road West, Kingston. All money raised will go to the American Cancer Society. Call the church office at 376-2990 for details.

A long winter for the Occupy Wall Street movement has seen a shift in tactics by cities, towns and state legislatures seeking to remove many of the estimated 600 encampments nationwide.

Some Occupy groups camped on public property have obtained court rulings that permit them to protest anytime in public spaces, but not to keep tents or sleeping bags on the sites. Elsewhere, formal or informal bargains have been struck that allow tents but not the accessories of camping — in effect permitting momentary shelters, not encampments.

The rock-ribbed coast of Maine is not noted for many products — timber and paper wood, potatoes, seafood, and L. L. Bean apparel being the principal ones.

But far and away the most important thing that has sprung from that rocky soil may well be its womenfolk.

This thought comes to mind in view of the announcement last week that Olympia Snowe, three-term Republican senator for Maine will not seek re-election this year, thus ending more than thirty years in the Congress, both House and Senate.